Plus, how we feel about housing affordability and the state of the NZ economy compared to the world, in results from a new Stickybeak poll for The Spinoff. This week marks a year since New Zealand’s first confirmed case of Covid-19, and the support for the measures imposed at the border to throttle the inward … Read more
Plus, how we feel about housing affordability and the state of the NZ economy compared to the world, in results from a new Stickybeak poll for The Spinoff. This week marks a year since New Zealand’s first confirmed case of Covid-19, and the support for the measures imposed at the border to throttle the inward … Read more
Recapping the highs and lows of 12 turbulent months. It’s officially the last week of the year and yet March 2020 feels just like yesterday. So much of our lives have been affected in strange and unexpected ways since the global pandemic was declared and our markets and economies have been no exception. So what … Read more
New Zealand is in recession, so why are so many in the finance industry so confident about the future? Fergus McDonald of Nikko Assset Management explains. This was a year of fear, anxiety, uncertainty and global economic defibrillation. And yet for investors and owners of assets – from art, to gold, to property – it … Read more
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Protests and legal challenges as US election counting continues, Ardern sets out government’s economic plans, and special votes released today could swing seats. If you’re hoping for a decisive update to the US election count overnight, bad news – it’s still on a knife edge. At … Read more
Stats NZ has today released its labour market data for the three months to September, which shows an increase inline with most forecasts. What’s all this then? According to Stats NZ’s labour market data released this morning, New Zealand’s official unemployment rate has increased from 4% to 5.3% for the three months from July to … Read more
Does it sounds like a Key-English slogan, or something from Ardern-Robertson? Labour is ahead in the polls with a few days to go until decision day, and as incumbents you’d expect some of their messages to echo those from governing parties of days gone by. Grant Robertson and Jacinda Ardern have both, repeatedly, admiringly invoked … Read more
We’ve heard at length from the five major parties. But what policies do the minor parties have to support businesses and rebuild the economy from the Covid-19 rubble? Geoff Simmons of TOP, Vernon Tava of Sustainable NZ, Billy Te Kahika Jnr of Advance NZ and John Tamihere of the Māori Party today addressed New Zealand’s … Read more
Voting is under way in the New Zealand general election. Explore the main parties’ pledges at Policy.nz, but here’s a whistle-stop tour of what’s on offer in the world of the economy, tax and debt. Read more two-minute policy wraps here Under the government’s economic response to Covid-19, crown debt is forecasted to reach 55% … Read more
It’s results season for many of New Zealand’s biggest corporates, which find themselves awkwardly announcing large profits, with the wage subsidy helping them get there. We’re now approaching six months since the dread of late March, when over the course of a few fearsome days New Zealand closed its borders, locked its population inside and … Read more
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Concern from the Cook Islands over travel bubble, inquiry clears Iain Lees-Galloway of any spending impropriety, and Oranga Tamariki facing further damaging report findings. A draft agreement on a travel bubble with the Cook Islands is close to being finalised, the PM revealed yesterday. Stuff reports it … Read more
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Many stories told by latest unemployment figures, Bloomfield says return of community transmission almost inevitable, and major tenancy reform package passes. First of all, it’s pretty clear that the top-line unemployment figure going down is a misleading picture of the state of the economy. Yesterday new … Read more
The latest round of economic data won’t carry Judith Collins and the National Party into the promised land, and she’ll need to come up with something else to save her chances, writes political commentator Ben Thomas. The government has delivered an economic miracle! How else to describe today’s labour market statistics for the June quarter … Read more
A comprehensive proposed shake-up of the Resource Management Act has gained support from the business community and multiple parties. Pattrick Smellie of BusinessDesk reports on what it might involve. After 29 years of argument and increasing complexity, the Resource Management Act needs to be split in two and the overlapping patchwork of competing of regional … Read more
This is easy and you will get them all right. The billboards are up and the campaigns are under way. The party slogans are right there, up in your face. There are some you could name off the bat. But can you get them all? Here are the slogans for the top eight most popular … Read more
Ten points, two plans. Which points are whose? With an election within spitting distance, Aotearoa’s two biggest political parties are all about the plans. “You don’t have a plan!” says one party to the other. “Yes we have a plan, or certainly a plan to have a plan, or a plan to say you have … Read more
Cycling is an unusually controversial topic. The NZIER public good team explains why the government invests in cycle lanes, and why they make some people so mad. Under lockdown, we saw nature healing. The air was fresh and clean, native birdsong filled our ears, and bikes returned to the roads. It’s not surprising that bike … Read more
Covid-19 forced both shoppers and small businesses to quickly adapt to a digital-only world. As life returns to something closer to normal, Visa’s Marty Kerr explains how businesses can respond to consumers’ changed habits. It’s a situation so outlandish, not even the most doomsday-prepared could’ve had a plan in place. Before March 25, when the … Read more
Waitomo is a town built on tourism. But as overseas visitors who have been flocking to its spectacular network of glow-worm caves for over a century dry up, the future looks uncertain. More than 130 years ago, the eruption of Mount Tarawera killed an estimated 153 people and buried Te Otukapuarangi and Te Tarata, the … Read more
One in three households are in financial difficulty and a greater number still at risk of tipping into hardship following the Covid crisis, finds a Commission for Financial Capability report. The Commission for Financial Capability has this morning published findings on the financial vulnerability of New Zealanders following the Covid crisis. And it makes for … Read more
Over lockdown, school, home and the office all merged into one place, affecting how we worked and when. The NZIER public good team explains why we need to rethink how we measure productivity. How productive was your lockdown? Now we’re in level two, it’s the perfect time to pause and reflect on the stuff we … Read more
The hugely successful coronavirus response means New Zealand is well-placed for an export-led recovery, writes Charles Finny in this paper for the SSANSE Commission for a Post-Covid Future at the University of Canterbury. New Zealand’s response to Covid-19 has come at an enormous economic cost. If we don’t move very fast that cost will increase … Read more
Budget 2020: Simon Bridges led the critiques, while Winston Peters got personal. Grant Robertson’s budget spends too much money, delivers too little help to businesses struggling due to Covid-19 and will leave future generations swamped by debt, opposition leaders have argued. The finance minister and the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, faced enormous expectations before unveiling … Read more
Budget 2020: The government has unveiled a massive $50bn spending package, including an eight week extension to the wage subsidy. Duncan Greive asks the business community: is it enough? The government this afternoon unveiled a massive new $50bn programme of spending – “much bigger than anyone expected”, according to Kiwibank senior economist Jeremy Couchman. The … Read more
Budget 2020: From supermarket workers to machine operators to cleaners, the people at the bottom of the socioeconomic pile deserve to be be part of the post-pandemic conversation – and to be allowed to speak for themselves, writes Stacey Shortall. While there is an audible sigh of relief in New Zealand that we are now … Read more
Even in the wake of Covid-19 an outwards focus remains the only sustainable path – especially for a small country – to a much greater of material prosperity, writes Michael Reddell, in the first of a series of new papers for the SSANSE Commission for a Post-Covid Future at the University of Canterbury. Covid-19, and … Read more
In the first part of our new series with Kiwibank answering your questions about Covid-19’s impact on New Zealanders’ finances, a reader asks about ways to get their business through the economic downturn and take advantage of new opportunities. Kiwibank’s Nigel Gaudin responds. Dear Nigel, I run a small retail business with five staff and … Read more
As the countless graphs of Covid-19 cases have shown us, what comes up must invariably come down. Justin Connolly asks if we need to think that way about the economy. There have been many funny posts circulating on social media about life in Covid-19 lockdown. One in particular caught my eye because it was funny, … Read more
The economy is facing its worst crisis in almost a century, with the prospect of hundreds of thousands of people imminently losing their jobs. So why is the sharemarket chugging away at its own recovery? Alex Braae speaks to some experts to get an explanation. How’s the economy doing? In normal times, the most regularly … Read more